What a fun day! It started as usual — with a delicious cup of ‘special’ coffee. I worked at my usual morning puzzles and read the latest news. By around eleven I decided to cancel breakfast go directly to lunch. Well, actually lunch is a bit of an exaggeration. But I had a piece of pseudo-bread with ham and cheese and dipped into my little bowl of cherry jello and whipped cream. And then I was off.

I arrived at the Tahquitz Creek golf course in Palm Springs with nearly 30 minutes to spare before my scheduled tee time. I parked the van, squeezed into my golf shoes, and headed to the clubhouse. I had booked the game on GolfNow and so when I gave the guy at the desk my name he looked it up and told me that I was ‘good to go’. I went out the where the starter was lining up golf carts and told him my name and tee time. Oh! Hey, your group just teed off. Do you want to grab a cart and catch up with them? Or, if you prefer, there’s hardly anyone behind you — would you want to golf by yourself? No, I don’t wanna golf by myself. Okay, no problem. I’ll escort you out to your group.

So we drive past the group that’s loosening up on the first tee box and the guy leads me to the three gentleman who I’m supposed to golf with. They’re chipping onto the first green. He announces me and leaves me there. I drop a ball and give it a ride with one of my newly re-gripped wedges. Not a good shot. Again. Phew! I’m on the green, but a mile away from the pin. So now the ‘group’ waits for me to park my cart and come with my putter. Well, putting isn’t my strong suit.

It gets better quickly. I’m golfing with Jim, a doctor from BC, and Bjorn from Norway, and Mark from Oregon. We’re at the second tee — and Mark says to me that the other two started from the yellow ‘forward’ tees, so he was doing the same. Well, okay, I’ll play the game. The fairways on this course are big and wide, with great views of the mountains. No danger of hitting a house here. And after a couple of holes the crew seems to accept me a little better. I guess those initial shots I took gave them a bit of a scare that I was gonna prevent everyone from finishing the round before sundown. But I did NOT hold them back — and played a very good game, not only out-driving them but also out-scoring them. No birdies, but lots of pars and nothing worse than a double. Anyway, it was a fun course to play, and I’ll very likely play it some more before I’m outta here.

By the last couple of holes the sun had hidden behind the mountains and the temperature was quickly coming down from the daytime high of somewhere in the mid-80s. By the time I was leaving the parking lot it was dark. I headed to the nearby airport just to scout out a possible parking spot for my van when I fly home for a few days at the end of this week. Yup, there were lots of cars and lots of parking spots on some of the streets near the airport. I took a quick spin down to the big Honda dealer and pulled into the lot behind the garage. I asked one of the mechanics if they would have a bit of power steering fluid for me — the pump on my van was making some noise when I turned the wheel and I didn’t need a whole quart of fluid. Oh yeah, I’ll bring you some. And he returns with a brand new bottle. I opened it and topped up the fluid reservoir on the van. When I tried to return the bottle the mechanics insisted that I could just keep it. So that was a win for me — I expect I will need to top up again before I eventually make it home with the van.

It was ‘rush hour’ traffic now. I pulled in at the In-N-Out Burger on the way home. Ordered an ‘animal-style’ cheeseburger (you can look it up), fries, and a strawberry milkshake. That’s how I celebrated a good day out on the golf course!

Back at home, I rehydrated and watched a movie — The Fabelmans on HBO. I stayed up until Jimmy Kimmel started at 11:35, and wrote my blog while he did his monologue. I was in bed before 1:00am.